Picture My Story

Background on pervasive gaming: Mayra focuses on social online game worlds as an important form of contemporary games cultures (146). In defining pervasive games he juxtaposes them to modern graphical massively multiplayer games which often appear as extensive virtual worlds, characterized by persistence and continuity. These games invite for social collaboration and engage their players with the life of player-created organizations, closely tying these two types of games together.
Pervasive games emphasize the importance of distance and differences between locations, as crucial aspects of their functioning roles as sites for experiments of identity and exploring an alternative social reality (Mayra, 147). Many of the values and rules related to pervasive gaming intertwined with other forms of values which are created by the players through their imaginative immersion and various social interactions. As introduced in Mayra’s chapter ‘Multinodal and Pervasive games’, this type of gameplay is also important in providing a link between traditionally physical forms of play and sports, and contemporary forms of digital games, transcending the traditional limits of gaming and extending the boundaries of digital gaming. By inviting the players to join forces in solving complex puzzles, for example, pervasive games become powerfully immersive experiences for their players (Mayra, 146). Pervasive games often include calibration or other forms of locality based measurements, differentiating them from augmented/ or mixed reality games, for example, which are often facilitated by technology not necessarily embedded in the physical world.

Motivation: coming up with a pervasive game concept was very difficult since we could not pin point something that included space exploration and was easy to play on a regular basis. However, due to the popularity of smartphones and social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, we decided to focus on photography using such devices. Another important aspect was using the space of the city of Amsterdam, by doing this we were able to establish limits and areas to explore. Competitiveness was also a focus, so that is why we established a weekly “competition” amongst the users. Though social aspects are important for pervasive gaming, we decided to tone them down and base the game on achievements through photography quality and storytelling.

Picture My Story is an app where you must complete weekly challenges in order to map the city of Amsterdam and capture its emotions; furthermore, the app will give you the chance to get your picture published in our blog and publicized to the rest of our users, you will also accumulate points that you will be able to trade in for great prizes in the future.

Every week a theme will be give to our users, the task every time is to create a story through 3 pictures (exactly three!, tres!, drie!) that best portray that theme in you chosen Amsterdam area.

Picture My Story in easy steps steps:

Download the app from the Google’s Play store or Apple’s AppStore.

Choose a username and a city area from the starters list: Leidseplein, Dam Square, Rembrandtplein.

Check the weekly challenge and start taking pictures!

Submit your picture story by Sunday midnight, and wait for the results every Wednesday night.

Rules:
– You can take as many pictures as you want and use the apps filters to your hearts content, however, only three pictures per submission are allowed.
– You can only make a submission once a week.
– You are restricted to the area of your choosing for each submission (Geotagging is a MUST for every picture).

Progression:
– After each submission you can choose an new area from the same group for the next submission.
– After using the three areas in a group you can move to another group. The more areas you cover the greater your mapping of Amsterdam will be.

Rewards:
– Every submission will make the corresponding area “Clear”, which will allow you to choose a different area for the next submission.
– Each Wednesday a winner will be chosen, his/her Picture Story will be posted in the winners section of the app. It will also be posted in a special blog dedicated to all of the winning submissions.
– Every winner will gain extra points that can be used to unlock new locations to take your pictures at.
– Winners will also collect “Story points” that can be exchanged for prizes.